Dear Echoing Grace
by RelapseAndEscape
Summary: Rachel's been giving Finn ridiculous tasks to do that she can't be bothered to do herself. Kurt snaps when she berates Finn when he drops her music folder in Glee because he's been so tired. TW: overdose, guilt.


_this time, this one's a Finn piece! WOW. xD. how many do oneshots do I have? You don't want to know :P this was written before Choke aired on 3x18, so i really didn't know anything about the NYADA audition or how it went along, so go with the flow, m'kay?_

* * *

_Your eyes are just as blue as the sky x_

Kurt grinned at the text message he'd received from Blaine, and so far, it had been his morning – skin routine in check in less time than usual, hair styled and sculpted, outfit planned and assorted perfectly, scarf around his neck in the most elegant manner and he swung his messenger bag without another thought to his room as he shut off the lights. The well routine carried into his breakfast, of so he found himself eating through an egg sandwich, along with Carole's insistence of her sugar-free pancakes, which tasted exceptionally astounding that morning.

Then he got a glimpse of his brother and the wide grin that had been on his face previously disappeared.

Finn's hair was dishevelled to a point where Kurt was questioning his brother's sleep routine, eyes bloodshot, shoulders slouching and Kurt realised that Finn was wearing a flannel shirt, which caused Burt to raise his eyebrow, "isn't that my shirt, sport?"

Finn looked down as if just noticing and opened his mouth to say something when Burt just shook it off.

"It's okay, you know – m' just wondering and all," Burt quickly stated, seeing Finn slowly nod his head lifelessly.

Kurt bit down his lower lip but decided to wave it off as a bad night of sleep as Finn stared down at his breakfast, looking ready to sleep in it. By the time that they were done, Kurt had to pat on Finn's shoulder four times before Finn realised that Kurt was there.

"Come on. I'll drive you."

Finn nodded his head and sat in the back whilst they picked up Blaine. Blaine's enthusiasm had quickly disappeared after a while.

"Kurt, Finn fell asleep."

"Finn, honey, wake up!" Kurt exclaimed sweetly, and by the time that Finn woke up, he groaned and for some reason, his eyes looked even worse right then.

"But I feel really nauseous," Finn muttered.

"That's because you didn't eat anything and tried to fall asleep in a car," Kurt explained and then looked back to Finn and when they had reached the doors of McKinley, Kurt looked at Blaine before stating. "Go, I'll take Finn back home, okay?"

Blaine nodded his head and stepped out of the car.

Back home, Finn was just about to retire to his bedside when he noticed his Android had been buzzing in his pocket, and sliding the lock, he came face-to-face with a text from Rachel_. Need to make cookies for Dads, made them angry – need Smartie's to make…take out red + blue ones, okay? Five tubes would be enough. Drop it off at my Dads' house sometime today_.

He stepped outside, too tired to drive and decided to walk and nearly got hit by a car thrice with men telling him to pay attention to the road and sidewalk. He wondered what Kurt would do when he found out, as he bought his five packs of Smartie's, and the guy behind the counter took one look at him and said. "Kid, you gonna pass out or something?"

Finn just shrugged.

"Not that it's my business or anything – but hey, you gotta take care of yourself. What with how rough high school is these days and shit."

Finn nodded, and paid, leaving with his head full of fluff and lead, not really hearing whatever was around him. He picked off a container Rachel gave him once that he had to give her back anyway. He brought himself a plate, and then spilled the contents of the five tubes, nearly wincing when he saw each tube, two hundred Smartie's on the counter that made him want to throw up. All of the colours raked his brain. He took out all of the red and blue ones he could find and then shut the container tightly.

He drove over to the Berry's and then when they noticed him standing there awkwardly, they let him in.

Leroy stared at Finn as he went up to Rachel's room and then when he came down, and just as he was about to leave, Leroy grabbed his wrist. "Come on. I need you to help us check the labels of the new supermarket groceries just to make sure that it's vegan for my girl."

Finn nodded towards Leroy. Leroy inspecting it first and then giving it to Finn to make double-sure. "Once I accidentally marked off a label that said it had cheese in it and she wouldn't forgive me for weeks," Leroy went on talking about Rachel and Finn continued to simply nod, not really engaging in conversation with him. By the time that he heard the door shut, Rachel appeared from the doorway.

"Oh, hi," Rachel offered a smile, and then stared at Finn. "What are you doing here?"

"You told me to drop the –thing—here," Finn suddenly stated and Rachel nodded, disappearing to her room. Finn followed her, mostly because he was done looking for casein and if he sees anymore huge words and numbers on the ingredients list that he didn't know about, he might scream. Rachel opened the container, inspecting it and then pulled out five pieces of red. "Finn, I told you to look through this."

Finn nodded his head. "It's okay. I'll do better nice time," he assured her, and his eyes were on her bed, that looked suddenly very inviting despite how girly it was. Finn suddenly collapsed onto her bedside, causing Rachel to snap.

"What are you doing sleeping on my _bed_? Finn! I just cleaned those!"

Finn groaned and reluctantly was being pulled from the bedside, as Rachel nodded towards him.

"Anyway," she began, as she stared at him. "I need you to be there for my audition on Tuesday, alright?" Finn nodded his head and then gave her a smile before hugging her. Rachel melted into his arms, looked up at him and gave him a soft kiss. When Finn shut his eyes, he stopped responding to the kiss, causing Rachel to shake him awake.

Finn looked apologetic as he bit his lip. "Sorry, Rache."

"You fell asleep when I kissed you," Rachel sounded very hurt, as she looked at him and Finn nodded his head.

"Can I make it up to you, Rache?" Finn hoped.

Rachel nodded her head and then wrapped her arms around him tightly. Finn wrapped his arms around her as tightly as possible. "Well, there is something…"

* * *

Damn. He was going to be late to Rachel's audition, and now, she was going to hate him. The still very exhausted boy was driving off towards the place, with Rachel's directions in mind, having have driven nearly an hour to get there, and felt his eyelids dropping. When he nearly swerved off the road because of how tired he had been, Finn gasped in shock and retreated to a parking spot. The minute he stepped out, a shocked Tina was standing by.

"I came to support Kurt," Tina began, and watched Finn sluggishly step out of the car. "And instead, almost witnessed you almost getting run over."

"I didn't text," Finn tried to assure her, as he pushed past her, remembering Quinn's recent accident, but she was grabbing his wrist.

"Finn, you look like you're going to faint from exhaustion," the girl stated. "Come on. I'm sure Rachel won't mind if you skip—"

"No!" Finn said, eyes wide. "She will. I _promised_."

And with that, he strode off to the auditorium and had watched Kurt standing there, alongside Rachel, frowning when he saw Finn standing there, looking just as tired as he had been since the beginning of senior year. Rachel smiled towards him and then told him to follow her. Throughout the auditions, Finn realised why Rachel wanted him there –

He was there to wipe her brow with a towel.

"Come on. Kurt insisted on driving us—we're gonna get our results in a week…" Rachel said, and then Finn nodded his head and followed her.

Kurt stared at Finn as he fell asleep in his car, waking up every few minutes because of the nausea that was taking him over and how weak his stomach was, indicating to Kurt that either he hadn't eaten well or he didn't eat at all because of how sleepy he was. He can see that Finn's mind was fixated on simply sleep, sleep, _sleep_.

* * *

The last straw was at Glee the next day.

"So was the rehearsals?" Mr Schue asked both Rachel and Kurt.

Rachel, with her large doe brown eyes, began speaking. "They were generally well for me, and we will get our calls in a week or so."

Kurt nodded. "I can't tell to be honest," but he still sounded excited.

"Kurt was amazing," Tina simply said and the two shared a grin before Blaine gave his boyfriend a gentle squeeze on his hand to remind him that he did well. Rachel waited for some sort of assurance from Finn but noticed him slouching against the chair, with her music folder in his hand.

Finn nearly fall asleep as he slouches again but this time, he's dropped Rachel's music folder and three months of sheet music down onto the ground, and Rachel stares at Finn with a horrific expression.

"_Finn_!" Rachel exclaims, standing up as Finn kneels down to get the papers. "That's three months of work that I assorted by myself down onto the ground! How can you lack the ability to hold a music folder? God, Finn, do you even _understand_ how hard it is to assort them? No! If anything, I'll make you sit down and assort every singular music sheet on—"

"RACHEL. BERRY."

Rachel turned around to see a very enraged furious Kurt standing there with betrayed blue eyes. "I am sick of seeing you _bully_ my stepbrother."

"Bully him?"

"It practically is. Just because you're a girl doesn't mean you don't have the ability to do so and don't get me started on the fact that Finn's been looking like Hell for months now because of you. If Finn did the same thing to you, you'd even file it as _abuse_, or complain and bitch about it but Finn's been _silent_ about it. He has no energy at all. He can't focus on anything and not only is it showing in him, it's showing in his report card—why should his grades suffer because you ask him to do the most stupidest, ridiculous things I have ever heard of in my life—"

Kurt took a deep breath to prevent him from punching Rachel right there.

"If I asked Blaine to _separate red and blue Smartie's_ for him in _my_ free time, I'd fully deserve the punch on my face. He is so tired that he's practically depressed and all he does is dependent on sugar and caffeine throughout the days. He hasn't eaten anything proper in months. The most he can do is buy a few candy bars and eat them so he can have even the littlest amount of energy to do anything. He comes from football so run-down that I can't even look at him, or speak to him because he'll probably fall asleep on the kitchen floor if it was up to him—actually, I have found him heating up a bowl of Cheerio's and slouched against the counter, _asleep_."

Kurt suddenly glared at her. "You know what, Rache? I hope you don't get your spot. Not because I don't want to be in the same room with the person that is _killing_ my brother, but because you don't deserve it when you treat people like they're second-hand. When you gain a little fame, you'd think nobody is better than you. You are so _narcissistic_ that Sebastian looks like he hates himself in front of you."

Kurt stared down at Finn and then with a soft expression. "Come on. I'm taking you home and you are falling asleep."

Finn stared down at the papers, and shook his head before trying to re-assort the rest of Rachel's papers. Rachel looked down at the mess of her boyfriend, the boy whom she was chasing after the beginning of the year, the boy who she wanted to just like her, was now crouching down with a disaster of music sheets, as he shoved them into her folder after getting the pattern. The pattern she sometimes forgot. "Here," Finn gave her the folder and she felt a heaviness in her chest.

Kurt grabbed onto Finn's hand.

"That is not cool," Puck stared at Rachel.

"He almost got into a car accident," Tina suddenly blurted out and Kurt, this time froze, as Tina continued to speak. "…you know, he was driving and he fell asleep. And if the car didn't stop, he'd be…"

"Rachel," Quinn's voice was so betrayed that Rachel couldn't even look at her.

Kurt looked back at Rachel and shook his head. "I'm done. I don't have anything else to say." And that hurt her more than any more yelling at her did. The next day when she did visit at seven am. Carole had opened the doorway and Kurt was asleep. She knew Finn would be too, or she hoped.

"How's Finn?"

Carole looked uneasy. "He's been asleep for nearly sixteen hours. I can't get him to wake up."

"Kid's been so out of it, I'm glad he didn't," Burt said from the doorway and Rachel nodded her head as she walked upstairs anyway, promising to be very quiet. Rachel slid into the room to see that on the bed, Finn curled up to one side, eyes wide with redness and clutching a bottle of anti-anxiety medication, unable to fall asleep.

"Oh God, Finn…" Rachel's voice was soft.

Finn put the bottle down and Rachel sat down beside him, running her fingers through her hair. "I'm so tired that I can't sleep, Rache," Finn answered, and Rachel nodded her head, watching him shift sides so his face can be pressed against her body. He should be angry…he wasn't. He was too tired to be angry, too tired to show a glimmer of emotion as he pressed his head against Rachel's thigh. Rachel pulled out a bottle of sleeping pills and opened it up, giving it to him.

Finn's eyes burned with desperation as he downed down half of them in one go. "_FINN_!"

Rachel grabbed onto his shoulders and shook him as he turned to one side and threw up a bout of vomit and blood in his wake. Rachel pounded her hand against Kurt's doorway, "KURT! KURT! WE NEED HELP! NOW."

Kurt slid the door with scorn for the woman but eyes paled when he had noticed that Finn was throwing up a great deal of vomit and blood.

"…you tried to kill my brother."

"No!" Rachel suddenly said. "I gave him the pills and he was just so desperate to actually fall asleep, took half of them—"

Kurt's mind fuzzed out afterwards and the next series of actions felt like a dream. The car ride, the screaming, the hospital, Finn laying in the bedside, with extreme jaundice and staying there for inability to function with the diseased, failing liver. Rachel's hand on his own, with the IV hooked to him. "Finn," Rachel cried out in desperation, eyes wide with pain and tears burning into her eyes.

"Finn."

Finn looked at her and then produced a soft smile. "Hey, don't cry," and Rachel didn't even notice the hot tears running down her eyes.

"I love you," Finn whispered, and Rachel squeezed his hand harder, and in dear echoing grace of the moonlight, could see how small he seemed and she was left staring at the mark of her corruption.


End file.
